A revolutionary development in the rapidly expanding field of “chemical biology” is related to chemistry in living systems. Chemistry in living systems concerns chemical reactions that are mild in nature, yet so rapid and high-yielding that they work at about physiological pH, in water, and in the vicinity of biomolecular functionalities. Such reactions may be grouped under the term “bioorthogonal chemistry”. In the field of bioorthogonal chemistry there are two main challenges: first, the development of suitable chemistry, and second, the application thereof in living organisms (in vivo).
In the field of chemistry, an enormous toolbox of chemical reactions is available that may be applied to the construction of complex organic molecules. However, the vast majority of such reactions can only be performed under strictly anhydrous conditions, in other words, in the complete absence of water. Although still a good minority of chemical reactions may be performed in, or in the presence of, water, most of these reactions can still only be applied in vitro because the interference of other compounds present in the living organism with the chemicals involved can not be excluded. At present, only a handful of chemical reactions is fully compatible with other functional groups present in the living organism.
An example of such a reaction is the cycloaddition of cyclic alkynes and azides, one of the reactions known as “click reactions”. This reaction has become a versatile tool for bioorthogonal labeling and imaging of biomolecules (such as for example proteins, lipids, glycans and the like), proteomics and materials science. In essence, two separate molecular entities, one charged with an azide, and one charged with a strained cycloalkyne, will spontaneously combine into a single molecule by a reaction called strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC). The power of SPAAC for bioorthogonal labeling lies in the fact that an isolated cyclic alkyne or azide is fully inert to biological functionalities, such as for example amines, thiols, acids or carbonyls, but in combination undergo rapid and irreversible cycloaddition leading to a stable triazole conjugate. For example, azido-modified proteins, obtained by expression in auxotrophic bacteria, genetic engineering or chemical conversion, can be cleanly labeled with biotin, fluorophores, PEG-chains or other functionalities upon simply stirring the azido-protein with a cyclooctyne conjugate. Moreover, the small size of azide has proven highly useful for application of SPAAC in the imaging of specific biomolecules by means of the chemical reporter strategy.

Apart from azides, cyclooctynes also show high reactivity with other dipoles, such as nitrones and nitrile oxides. For example, the strain-promoted alkyne-nitrone cycloaddition (SPANC) was applied for the N-terminal modification of proteins.
SPAAC and SPANC cycloaddition reactions (Scheme 1) proceed spontaneously, hence in the absence of a (metal) catalyst, and these and a select number of additional cycloadditions are also referred to as “metal-free click reactions”.
Several cyclic alkynes and their application in bioorthogonal labeling are described in the prior art. US 2009/0068738, incorporated by reference, relates to modified cycloalkyne compounds and their use in modifying biomolecules via a cycloaddition reaction that may be carried out under physiological conditions. The cycloaddition involves reacting a modified cycloalkyne, such as for example difluorinated cyclooctyne compounds DIFO, DIFO2 and DIFO3, with an azide moiety on a target biomolecule, generating a covalently modified biomolecule. It was observed that fluoride substitution has an accelerating effect on the cycloaddition with azide. For example DIFO3 displays a significantly improved reaction rate constant of up to k=76×10−3 M−1 s−1, versus a maximum of 2.4×10−3 M−1 s−1 for non-fluorinated systems.

Cyclooctynes wherein the cyclooctyne is fused to aryl groups (benzannulated systems) are disclosed in WO 2009/067663, incorporated by reference, and the reaction kinetics of these dibenzocyclooctyne compounds DIBO in the cycloaddition with azides are further improved (k=0.12 M−1 s−1).
Azadibenzocyclooctyne DIBAC was developed by van Delft et al. (Chem. Commun. 2010, 46, 97-99), incorporated by reference, and shows further improved reaction kinetics in the cycloaddition with azides (k=0.31 M−1 s−1).
Recently another benzannulated system, biarylazacyclooctynone BARAC, was reported by Bertozzi et al. (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 3688-3690), incorporated by reference. By placing the amide functionality in the ring, the reaction kinetics of the cycloaddition of BARAC with azides was improved significantly (k=0.96 M−1 s−1).
DIBO and DIBAC were also found to undergo rapid cycloaddition with nitrones as described by Pezacki (Chem. Commim. 2010, 46, 931-933) and by van Delft (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010, 49, 3065-3068), both incorporated by reference, with reaction rate constants up to 300 times higher than with azides.

However, the cyclooctyne probes for bioorthogonal labeling known in the prior art suffer from several disadvantages. First of all, widespread application is hampered by the fact that only DIBAC is commercially available. Synthetic preparation requires advanced chemical expertise. In addition, synthesis of the currently available probes is lengthy (eight chemical steps for DIFO2, ten steps for DIFO3, nine steps for DIBAC), and/or low-yielding (10% overall for DIBO). Thirdly, the presence of the two benzannulated aryl moieties in DIBO and DIBAC inflicts both serious steric repulsion as well as lipophilic character. The lipophilic character of DIBO and DIBAC may lead to a specific protein binding by van der Waals interactions, which is undesirable.
Hence, there exists a clear demand for novel, readily accessible and reactive bioorthogonal probes for use in metal-free click reactions, such as 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition with azides, nitrones and other 1,3-dipoles.